Kuchisake-onna: Am I Pretty?

You are walking home alone. It is late. The street is narrow, the rain has thinned to nothing, and there is someone standing under the streetlight ahead.

A tall woman. A long coat. Long black hair. A white surgical mask.

She steps into your path, the street goes quiet, and she asks you one question:

“Am I pretty?”

Kuchisake-onna, the slit-mouthed woman, is the Japanese urban legend that spread through the schools of Japan in 1979 so fast that teachers walked children home. This is that night, in first person, on real night streets.

HOW THE NIGHT GOES
• Swipe up to walk from light to light. She does not move. Then she is closer.
• When she asks, you have only a few seconds. Silence is also an answer.
• Say yes, and she pulls the mask down. “Even… like this?”
• Say no, and you will not get home.
• Or try what they say works: tell her she is average, ask her a question back, throw her bekko-ame candy, say “pomade” three times.
• Or run. They say she covers a hundred metres in six seconds. Swipe the way the street turns, and do not miss.

A NEW NIGHT EVERY TIME
Every walk home is different: a different street (the curve past the apartments, the lane to the railway crossing, the school gate, the vending machines), a different hour and weather, and a different woman. Some nights she is patient, some nights eager, some nights she is crying. And not every rule works every night. In the morning they will tell you at school what they heard. Some of it is true.

FOUR WAYS IT ENDS
She lets you pass. You get away. She follows you home. Or the streetlight goes out.

MADE TO BE FELT
• Photographic night streets: wet asphalt, LED and sodium streetlights, vending machine glow, utility poles
• Rain, wind, a distant train and the crossing bell, your own footsteps and heartbeat
• Her voice as a whisper close to your ear, in your language
• Vibration only when she comes closer and when she asks
• A journal of every night and a card to share how yours ended
• Nine languages: English, 한국어, 日本語, Português, Русский, Deutsch, हिन्दी, Tiếng Việt, Français

Play with headphones, in the dark.

Violence is implied and never shown. Free with ads; no ads appear on the street, during her question or during a run. The short videos before a walk (an umbrella, a friend's advice) are always optional. No account, no sign-in, no permissions beyond the network and vibration.

For entertainment purposes only. The walk, the woman and the rules of the night are fiction.